A place to stash random thoughts. Definitely not sponsored by my employer, family or anyone else.

Thursday, June 11, 2009

An iApp worth its hype.

I've been doing a lot of OpenGL programming using Max and Jitter, and I needed something to create some interesting textures. In the past I've used Photoshop, but it was always when someone else was paying for it. I just can't (or don't want to) afford it.

I tried some OS X programs, and never found what I wanted. So often, you are prevented from controlling the size of the canvas you are working on - and that is one of the main things I want to control. Alas, I thought I was stuck.

Then, in a recent article in some advertising-focused newsletter I get, I read a discussion about an iPhone app used to create a recent New Yorker cover. Then I read about it in the New York Times. Geez. All this hype can't be good...

Man, I couldn't have been more wrong. This is a simple app, but one that has a depth that is useful. The drawing is easy, the brush selection is limited (but cool) and the color handling is direct. But the coolest thing? It has a mini web server built in that allows you to log into the device and download any of the images you've created. They don't talk about this much in the articles, but it makes the whole "sync" issue a non-issue.